Spruce

Spruce is a relatively young British household cleaning brand built around a simple idea that immediately appealed to me: why are we repeatedly buying bottles containing mostly water, transporting that water around the country and then throwing the bottles away? Spruce replaces the conventional model with concentrated dry refills that are mixed with ordinary tap water at home in reusable aluminium bottles.

The environmental idea is strong, but Spruce goes further than packaging. Its formulations are deliberately short and avoid many ingredients I would rather not routinely introduce into my home, including synthetic fragrances, artificial colours, petroleum-derived ingredients, phosphates, pesticides, parabens, SLS and triclosan. The products use plant-derived cleaning agents, food-grade ingredients and, in the fragranced versions, organic essential oils. They are also palm-oil free.

I’m especially interested about Spruce’s combination of ingredient reduction and waste reduction. There is a tendency for environmental cleaning brands to concentrate on one or the other. A conventional formulation might be sold in a recycled bottle, or a concentrated refill might still contain ingredients I don’t particularly want around the home. Spruce has tried to rethink both sides at the same time.

The company is also a Certified B Corporation, first certified in January 2022. B Lab currently gives Spruce an impact score of 108.6, comfortably above the 80 points required for certification and up from its previous score of 94.2. That gives some independent substance to a sustainability story that could otherwise be very easy to market without much evidence behind it.

Spruce started with refillable household cleaning sprays and has expanded into a broader cleaning and laundry system.

Its core products include Multi-Purpose Cleaner, Bathroom Cleaner and other specialist household cleaning formulations, supplied as concentrated refills rather than conventional bottles of premixed liquid. Each refill makes a 500ml bottle when mixed with tap water at home.

The reusable aluminium bottles are what Spruce calls its Eternity Bottles. Instead of replacing the bottle when the cleaner runs out, the idea is to keep it indefinitely and buy only the lightweight refill. Aluminium is highly recyclable if the bottle eventually reaches the end of its useful life, but the more important environmental benefit for me is that the bottle isn’t intended to enter the recycling system after a few weeks in the first place.

The range now extends beyond surface sprays into laundry and household cleaning products, allowing more of the cleaning cupboard to be moved towards the same concentrated and refillable system.

The formulations themselves are relatively short. Spruce lists ingredients including citric acid, potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, sodium bicarbonate and sodium coco sulfate, alongside organic essential oils in fragranced versions. The essential oils can naturally contain fragrance allergens including citral, citronellol, geraniol, linalool and limonene.

A short ingredient list doesn’t mean every version is appropriate for every person. Someone particularly sensitive to fragrance or essential oils should still look at the individual formulation rather than relying on the overall natural positioning of the brand.

The concentrated refill model is what I like most about Spruce.

Most conventional liquid cleaning products contain a very large proportion of water. Water is obviously necessary when we clean, but there is little logic in manufacturing a bottle somewhere, filling it with water, putting it into a cardboard box, transporting that weight around the country and then throwing away the container when virtually every household already has water coming from the tap. The majority of cleaning products you buy from your regular supermarket is largely just water, which is heavy to transport and easy to spruce up (pardon the pun) with colourful bottles and green leaves pictures.

Spruce removes much of that process. The active formulation arrives as a small, lightweight refill and I add the water myself. The company says this eliminates the need to ship water and significantly reduces the carbon footprint associated with transport. The refill packaging itself is plastic-free and home compostable.

I also like the aluminium bottle system. Recycling is useful, but reuse is better than repeatedly recycling something. Every recycling cycle still requires collection, sorting, transportation and energy. A durable bottle designed to remain in the home, eliminates waste before it is created.

The ingredient philosophy is another major positive. Spruce deliberately excludes synthetic fragrance, artificial colours, petroleum, phosphates, pesticides, parabens, SLS and triclosan. It also avoids palm oil.

This is important particularly with spray cleaners. When I spray something onto a kitchen counter, high chair, table, bathroom surface or floor, I’m not thinking only about whether the surface looks clean afterwards. I’m also interested in what I’ve just dispersed into the air and what residue remains on surfaces that people, children and animals subsequently touch.

Spruce also doesn’t use conventional antibacterial agents simply so that it can make the familiar “kills 99.9% of germs” claim. For normal everyday cleaning, I don’t believe my home needs to be treated like an operating theatre. Cleaning away dirt and reducing microbial load is different from attempting to sterilise every surface we live on.

I like this philosophy because the microbiome doesn’t stop at the edge of our bodies. We live in a microbial environment, and the assumption that the healthiest home must be the one in which the largest possible number of microorganisms have been chemically destroyed deserves much more scrutiny than it normally receives.

The company’s environmental credentials stand up reasonably well outside its own website too. B Lab independently confirms Spruce’s B Corporation status and currently records an impact score of 108.6, compared with the 80-point certification threshold.

There is also useful independent evidence that the products actually clean well. In 2026, The Independent’s testing of eco-friendly cleaning products named the Spruce Multi-Purpose Cleaner its best eco-friendly cleaning product overall, specifically noting its cleaning performance, lack of streaky residue and refill system.

Environmental cleaning products won’t change anything if people try them, discover they don’t work and return to conventional products, so that’s an important factor in my decisions.

Spruce uses the terms “non-toxic”, “toxin-free” and “safe” quite confidently. I understand why, and I broadly support the precautionary philosophy behind the formulations, but these words are more absolute than I would personally use.

Toxicity isn’t simply a characteristic dividing substances into two neat categories of toxic and non-toxic. Dose, concentration, exposure route and frequency all matter. Even naturally occurring substances can be harmful at sufficient concentrations.

I therefore find Spruce’s actual ingredient exclusions much more useful than the word non-toxic. Telling me that a cleaner contains no synthetic fragrance, phosphates, petroleum, pesticides or triclosan gives me information I can evaluate. Simply telling me something is safe asks me to accept someone else’s conclusion.

At the same time, I don’t dismiss the precautionary approach merely because we don’t have decades of definitive human trials proving that every questionable household ingredient directly causes a particular disease, such as cancer. We are exposed to complex mixtures of substances from cleaning products, cosmetics, food, packaging, air pollution and the wider environment throughout our lives. Establishing a neat cause-and-effect relationship between one household ingredient and a disease that may emerge decades later is extraordinarily difficult.

For me, absence of definitive evidence of harm isn’t the same thing as evidence of absence of harm. Where a substance is unnecessary and a credible lower-exposure alternative works just as well, I am comfortable applying the precautionary principle rather than waiting for absolute proof.

I do, however, think Spruce occasionally stretches that philosophy into claims that need more qualification. For example, the company describes organic essential oils as having natural antimicrobial and antiviral properties. Individual essential oils certainly contain biologically active compounds and laboratory research has demonstrated antimicrobial activity for many of them, but that doesn’t mean a household cleaner containing essential oils should automatically be regarded as a clinically validated disinfectant.

Essential oils also aren’t automatically benign simply because they’re natural. Spruce itself discloses fragrance allergens including citral, citronellol, geraniol, linalool and limonene in relevant formulations. For someone with fragrance sensitivity, asthma, very reactive skin or a household where fragrance exposure is deliberately being minimised, it’s important to give it consideration.

Sodium coco sulfate is another ingredient worth understanding rather than simply categorising as good because it comes from coconut. It is a surfactant and does the useful job of lifting grease and dirt. Its plant origin doesn’t make it biologically inert. Again, this doesn’t make me reject the product. It simply reinforces why I prefer looking at actual formulations rather than letting either “natural” or “chemical” become shorthand for safe or dangerous.

There is also a practical compromise to the refill model. Mixing the products requires a little more effort than grabbing a ready-made spray bottle. Independent testing has described the process as slightly fiddly. That’s a minor inconvenience, but refill systems only create environmental benefits if they’re convenient enough for people to continue using them.

Independent customer evidence showed me strong independent product testing and verified B Corp information, but not a large body of clearly attributable customer reviews. That doesn’t count against the product, but it means I place more weight here on certification, formulation and independent product testing than on review scores.

Spruce is a Certified B Corporation.

Importantly, this is independently verifiable through B Lab rather than simply appearing as a logo on Spruce’s website. Spruce first achieved certification in January 2022. B Lab currently reports an overall B Impact Score of 108.6, substantially above the certification threshold of 80 and the 50.9 median score reported for ordinary businesses completing the assessment.

The previous published score was 94.2, so the company’s current assessment represents an improvement rather than simply maintaining its original certification level.

Spruce also states that its cleaning range is Vegan Society certified and cruelty-free. Its own impact reporting identifies Vegan Society certification among the third-party standards it has adopted.

The products are palm-oil free, although I treat that as an ingredient/sourcing characteristic rather than an organic certification.

Spruce isn’t a certified-organic cleaning brand. Organic ingredients are used selectively, particularly its essential oils, but that shouldn’t be confused with the entire finished product carrying organic certification.

Spruce is an Approved Brand in my directory, and I particularly like it because it addresses two separate problems at once: what is inside our cleaning products and the extraordinary amount of waste involved in selling them to us.

The refill concept makes immediate sense. I already have water at home. I don’t need a factory to add it to my cleaning product, put it into a disposable plastic bottle and transport that weight around the country for me. Sending the concentrated formulation and allowing me to add tap water feels like one of those ideas that makes the conventional system look strangely inefficient once you’ve seen the alternative.

I also like the restraint in the formulations. Spruce deliberately avoids synthetic fragrance, artificial colours, petroleum, phosphates, pesticides, parabens, SLS and triclosan and doesn’t use palm oil.

That doesn’t mean I accept every marketing claim without question. “Non-toxic” is an appealing phrase but an imprecise one. Natural ingredients can irritate, essential oils contain recognised fragrance allergens and plant-derived surfactants are still biologically active cleaning agents. I would rather know exactly what’s in the bottle than rely on either fear of “chemicals” or reassurance from the word “natural”.

What strengthens Spruce considerably for me is what I find when I leave its own website. B Lab independently confirms its B Corp certification and a strong current impact score of 108.6, while independent product testing has found that its Multi-Purpose Cleaner genuinely performs well enough to be named the best eco-friendly cleaning product overall in a 2026 comparison.

There is also something I particularly appreciate about Spruce’s approach to sustainability: it prevents waste rather than merely making waste slightly easier to recycle. A durable aluminium bottle that stays in my cupboard and tiny concentrated refills make more sense to me than celebrating another disposable plastic bottle because it happens to contain recycled plastic.

Spruce is therefore one of the more interesting modern cleaning brands in this directory. It doesn’t have the decades-long history of some other brands in my list, and I would like to see a larger independent customer evidence base as the company matures. But the underlying idea is excellent, the formulations are thoughtful, independent certification is strong and the products appear to perform well.

For a household trying to reduce both unnecessary chemical exposure and the mountain of packaging generated by everyday cleaning, Spruce offers a genuinely different alternative rather than simply a greener-looking version of the same old bottle.